From Life
by eavan
Summary: Karne and Connell return for a puzzle that starts with embroidery, of all things. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1: The Work

**CHAPTER 1: The Work**

The floor of Karne's living room is surprisingly comfortable. The front edge of his rectilinear Modernist couch has some concealed padding on the sheer plane from the cushion to the dark wood legs, and the coarse-loomed knit on the throw pillows from the old armchairs is softer than it looks. The coffee table edge is a little too far away to be really useful—I've got to stretch for my coffee mug when I want it—but it's otherwise a good place to sit and enjoy a borrowed book.

And that's what I was doing. It was Saturday and I'd demanded the day off. My phone was not only turned off but back at my apartment in the top drawer of my desk. In a spirit of defiance, I'd taken only my wallet and keys with me to Karne's: no notebook paper, no pen, and certainly no evidence bags.

Karne had smirked a little after he gave me the usual once-over when he opened his door. He hadn't said anything about the hanging white strings from the hole in the side seam of my jeans or that my grey t-shirt was almost indecently threadbare in spots. I knew he noted the difference, but I knew he didn't really _notice_. At least, I was relatively sure he didn't. To Karne I was the LA forensics employee that would talk to him whenever he wanted. That was it.

This isn't self-pity. This isn't Amy Connell wishing for a date, either. I've worked with Karne for months, whenever he lets me, and I've become convinced he's a genius. That has everything to do with the tenor of our relationship. I'm here to watch, and to think about what he does. I won't flatter myself into thinking I'm here to learn to be as good as he is. I think I can't, and he's told me he certainly doesn't believe I have the potential. And that's okay, really. He's an ass, but he's my ass.

I nearly snorted when I let those words float past my awareness. I tried to cover by bending over my book, but I could feel the hairs on the top of my head prickle. Yes, I'd caught his attention.

I craned my neck up to look at Karne, who'd been sitting in his armchair staring into the middle distance and smoking a succession of strong cigarettes. For the first time since he'd opened the door that morning, his grey eyes focused on my face.

"Have you finally tired of that absurd volume, doctor?" He smirked at his own wit. I made a slight effort not to roll my eyes.

"Don't call me that, and no." I dropped my head to focus again on the sharp reproductions of three canvases in Barnett Newman's _Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani_. Karne laughed quietly; the hisses of his exhalations crossed the room, and I tensed my shoulders trying not to start an argument.

The catalog had kept me busy on the floor through two cups of Karne's strong coffee. I'd seen Newman's canvases in the National Gallery, but it was years ago. The essays in the folio made me want to see them again and take more time with them.

"Really, Connell," he went on, his voice teasing. "An abstraction of the struggle of humankind against an all-powerful deity can't have held your attention so long. Your line of work must have made the 'struggle' commonplace."

"What are you talking about?" I gave up and folded the reproductions of the canvases back into the stout binding of the folio. "I look at bones all day; you know that."

"Nonsense," Karne waved his hand between us, sending a shower of ash to the floor. "You make observations all day. And you have chosen to continue on your vacation time."

"I'm not looking at them for that," I countered, installing myself in the armchair opposite his and tucking my feet up beside me to avoid his long legs stretched across the floor between us.

"Why, then? The trivia? Installed in 1966, monochromatic, fourteen canvases five by six and a half feet," he punctuated each point with a tap of his forefinger against the arm of his chair. "A contemporary of Rothko, of course." He ended his lecture with a slow smile that riled me.

"You know that's not why," I snapped. "I want to know where they've been, and who else wanted to look at them."

"Are you so lonely as that, Connell?" He smiled again. I stood up and strode over to the window. I could feel a tiny shake in the outer edge of my lip. It wasn't his right, not at all, but I didn't know what to say to stop him. I crossed my arms in front of me and heard him shift in his chair. "I've gone too far, Connell, I apologize."

"Just stop it," I said toward the window. I could hear him shift again. Good. He ought to be uncomfortable. But a second later I heard the grind of his lighter, and I tensed my jaw. Of course he'd just been reaching for another cigarette. Of course he had. "Haven't you?" I turned back toward him and waited.

"What?" He started the smile again, but it wilted before it was fixed. "Ah, loneliness still." He looked toward the glossy travertine fireplace, then turned back toward me. "Connell," he said impatiently, "I do keep opening my door to you."

"Course." I left my hands at my sides as I walked toward the opposite wall. As I tried to look anywhere but his face, I noticed a new addition to Karne's odd collections. On the drywall between the kitchen door and the small pass-through to the front room a long strip of cloth in dark purple sagged between two nails that would certainly leave a mark. As I stepped forward I could make out a tightly-packed pattern of intricate stitches wrought in copper twisted with dark silk. I leaned in and put my face close to the fabric.

A smell of sandalwood colored my first impressions. I squinted and shifted to let more sunlight hit the cloth. In the tangle of the pattern figures of elephants began to emerge. I put my forefinger to the upper edge of a large one's ear and traced the curves back to its head. As I started to draw my hand down the fine fabric and stitches toward the arc of the trunk, Karne cleared his throat.

I was hesitant to turn around. He didn't often drop an argument, and I didn't want to have the one we'd started. I kept my eyes on the fabric impaled on the mottled grey nails for a moment longer, then noticed a line of evenly spaced printed images. They'd been done at high resolution on photo paper, and I backed away a step to get out of the glare on the high-gloss finish. The dolorous faces of Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic saints gazed back at me. I turned to Karne, more interested in the choice of wall hangings than in the disagreement.

"What's the story here," I asked, gesturing toward the composition.

"You're wondering how I can have art on my wall and criticize you for wanting to look at art in a book." Karne continued to face away from me in his chair, but his voice carried easily.

"Not really. I know it's got to have something to do with a case."

"Impressive, Connell, impressive." He heaved himself out of the chair, and walked over next to me. I tried not to fidget. He peered down at me and I stepped back, trying to keep eye contact without putting a kink in my neck.

"It'd better be good for you to wreck this needlework." I sent him a quick glare that didn't faze him one shred.

"It is there for an investigation, Connell. The patterns of the center are the important thing." He tucked his thumbs into the lowest corners of his pockets.

"This is metallic thread wrapped with silk, though," I shook my head. "That's a lot of work just to drive a nail through it. Days. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking of the case, of course." His voice had taken on the tone he often used with DuPret, and I knew I was about to lose the privilege of looking at his Newman folio. "I can't see why you're so protective of objects that don't bear on anything."

"Because someone's hands and creativity went into it, Karne," I tried again. "Beauty can be a function too. And you've punched holes in it, just to—only to hang it on the wall." Karne huffed. I tensed my shoulders in response and I could see his eyes cut over to me long enough to catch the change in my posture. "Of course you don't mind," I snipped, "since it doesn't 'bear on anything.'"

"In fact it does, Connell, as I told you." In a burst of motion he crossed to his desk and retrieved a file, which he pushed into my hands. He walked back to his armchair with his lips pressed tight together and his stride shortened and tense.

"It has to do with this?" I flipped open the cover of the file as I walked toward the armchair opposite Karne and sat to scan the first page. I started to read the evidence accession form before I consciously realized what it was; once I did, I stopped short and plucked the page from the file. The absence of the gummed strip at the top edge—the one that usually holds the official triplicate form together—reassured me some. That meant it wasn't an original. Karne still shouldn't have had access to the form at all, but at least he only had a copy. I settled into a comfortable niche in the chair and began to read.


	2. Chapter 2: Landscapes

**CHAPTER 2: Landscapes**

Karne had turned away from me when he returned to his armchair. I looked up from the file resting on my lap. A newly-lit cigarette sent up a slim plume from the other side of the chair; above his head it caught a draft and dissipated. His hair had started to dry and fall forward in its usual determined way. He brought the hand holding the cigarette up to flick his hair back behind his ear, and the tip loomed dangerously close to his hairline. He cut his eyes over to me, drawing his eyebrows down. "What is it, Connell?"

"You're going to set your hair on fire that way," I muttered. A corner of his mouth jerked upward twice quickly before his stern expression returned.

"DuPret sent that file yesterday." He settled back in his chair as he finished speaking, but kept his eyes on me.

"DuPret?" Karne smirked a little at my surprised tone. From what I'd seen of their relationship, those two were hardly pen pals.

"He sends me curiosities; he thinks it will keep me away." Karne waved a hand in the air between us. This dismissive gesture of his had been present at the start of so many of our arguments that I gritted my teeth in preparation.

"And?" I prodded.

"And what, Connell?" He looked away from me again to blow a long stream of smoke into the air. "You have the file."

"Oh quit being an ass, Karne," I scolded. I went back to the form in my hands. It had been routed through a JP, which was unusual for the files that wind up in homicide. I scanned down the page and found it had been used as a sort of table of contents for a packet of evidence forms. Sloppy. Nobody in homicide would do that.

"You're making a face, Connell," Karne said dryly. I pressed my lips together. I could hear him let out an amused snort as I turned back to the file, and I considered throwing it at him.

"I will make it easy for you. Last month estate clearance teams in Hollywood Hills found a collection of framed embroidery done on an unorthodox material." His striking grey eyes were focused dead on mine, and they weren't amused. I spent a moment wondering if he believed his own dramatics before I took the bait.

"So what was it?" He sat forward and took another slow drag on his cigarette before answering.

"Human skin." I drew the inside of my cheek between my molars, then convulsively bit down when I fully processed what he'd said.

"Bridget above!" I felt the blush starting in my neck and face as soon as I heard that come out of my mouth. I tried to cover for it by going on quickly, but I could see Karne clamp down on a grin. If nothing else I guess I'm good comic relief. "How do they know it was skin? And in frames? Who exactly brought it in? Whose was it?"

"One at a time, Connell," Karne held up a hand. I squinted at it. There were several textures of paper in the file, I could feel it. I started to leaf through the stack and arrived at a reasonably sharp printout of a digital photo. This had to be it.

I felt my mind slip into lab mode and began to catalog my observations. Inside the standard gray background with scale markers along the bottom was an ornate dark wood frame antiqued with black in the crevices of its carved draperies and cornices. A thin mauve mat with precisely beveled edges set off a ground with the uneven look of antique paper. A meticulous hand had worked a design of arcing flowers onto the ground. I recognized the proportions from an old Art History class: the French landscape painters of the late eighteenth century. I reflexively looked for a hermit, banditti, or a ruined castle. Finally, my eye landed on a small figure in the lower right—a man with a tall walking stick held some distance from his side.

I brought my face closer to the photograph and stared at the stitches. Each length seemed so confident and precise that I looked for pencil or chalk marks on the ground. I found no trace. I sucked my cheek back between my molars and contained my hair behind my ears. The tiny blooms on the lowest stalks of the paintbrush stems seemed like either crewel or tatting; it was amazing for such a fine thread. It must have been a very fine needle, too. The evidence of it passing through the ground was impressively slight. I wished I could tilt the original in front of my eyes to see the surface more clearly.

I backed away from the photograph to look at the entire composition again, and the scale marker caught my eye. I let out a surprised noise, and Karne's head popped up. According to the marker, the entire composition was no larger than a snapshot. Amazing. I flipped through the file to the next photograph. Again, the virtuoso stitching took up a canvas so small it could fit on a postcard. "Criminy," I shook my head.

"I take it you're finished blaspheming, Connell?" Karne's sardonic voice brought my attention to his piercing look. The light from the open curtains slanted across his angular face, and again I noticed the precise elegance of his bone structure. I laughed at myself. Leave it to a forensic anthropologist to notice a man's bones. I yanked my attention back to the file.

"Course I am," I grunted. "Will you tell me the rest of the story now?"

"I will start with your initial questions," Karne began, still slouched and chain smoking between sentences. I sat forward to listen. "Mrs. Ettie Relson was a hoarder of many things—maps, paintings, posters, ceramic plates, mirrors. She was the wife of a refugee, and lost two sons in peacekeeping missions in the former Eastern Bloc. The saints," he paused to fling a hand toward the composition on the wall opposite my armchair, "are from digital photographs of hers. What you see in the file is the embroidered and framed human skin found by the estate clearance team," he announced. He flung a hand again, this time toward the file I held. I let my eyes dart to the photograph again.

I brought the photograph closer to my eyes again and focused on the texture of the field. I began to see the small curves of the grain of the skin. And there, just beneath the crewel I'd admired, I saw the delicate hatching of the knuckle. I felt my face crumple as I started to snap the folder shut with less care than I ought to have used. I swallowed hard and hoped Karne wouldn't notice. The last thing I needed was to have him see me act like a silly girl.

"Come Connell," he sat forward and laced his fingers after crushing his cigarette into the crowded surface of the plain saucer on his coffee table. "Tell me the provenance of this little collection of art."

"I really don't want to," I said. I closed the file and set it on the table, dropping my hands to my sides. Karne raised his eyebrows at me.

"Now Connell," He said lightly, "you can hardly be squeamish."

"Everyone's got their thing." My voice seemed to dissipate in the middle of the room. I cleared my throat and put my hands together on my lap as I let my mind wander back to my first anatomy lab. My partner had trouble with eyes. I've always hated hands. I could just see them in life, holding a fork at the dinner table or patting a grandkid

on the head. I swallowed again and shoved my hair back from my face. "Mine's hands."

"Give me your hand, Connell," Karne's sharp voice startled me, and I found I'd put my right hand into his waiting palm without really thinking about it. He turned my palm up and traced a finger along a crease of it. "You've an impressive heart line, Connell."

"Stop it. Please." I pulled my hand away and tucked it into the crook of my elbow. I imagined I could still feel the light traces of his finger on my skin, and I closed my eyes for a moment to shake it off.

"I've discomfited you, Connell. I do apologize." Karne sat even farther forward in his chair. I wandered to the window, determined not to seem childish.

"It's okay. Really. It's stupid, I know." I straightened my posture. "Stop playing with me, Karne. Where do you think the skin came from?"

"I have looked into a few lines of inquiry," Karne said, lighting another cigarette and taking a long moment to pour more coffee into his cup. "The local mortician's assistant has been most helpful."

Despite myself I started snickering. I could just see Karne marching into a funeral home and demanding to know how long human skin could be preserved if a person wanted to try some needlepoint on a free evening. I tried to sober up when I saw the testy look Karne was giving me, but I ended up just twisting around in my chair and stretching toward my coffee mug.

When I looked back Karne's face was back in the usual humored expression he wore during the start of an interesting case. He lifted an eyebrow at me. "Let's have it, Connell. Why might a person choose the skin of hands, and hands alone?"


	3. Chapter 3: Portraiture

**CHAPTER 3: Portraiture**

Because I spent many childhood years in the cutthroat world of a ballet studio, and because I work in the old-boy world of forensics, I took Karne's question as a challenge. He wanted to know why a person might want skin from hands? Well, I'd tell him.

That's a reasonable recap of the feelings that I took with me to the airport on my way to Washington for my vacation. I'd put two homicide psych books into my bag—one borrowed from Chad and the other from a bemused McLynn—along with a textbook on the history of forensic science. I'd also printed a few journal articles on hands just for good measure. As soon as I sat down I whipped out my first book on killers and applied myself to the task.

That lasted all of five minutes. Before I could get past the first page of my chosen chapter a loud man in a tight suit levered himself into the seat beside me and took up all the real estate on our shared arm rest. He prodded and shoved and grunted until his briefcase was under the seat in front of him, then turned to me with an expectant look on his face. I brought my book closer to my nose and regulated my breathing as though I were hiding in a deer blind.

No good. The man unleashed a broadside of information about his life as a traveling salesman, and there was no peace in row twenty-two for the rest of the flight. It was a slight consolation that the reedy young man on the other side of the salesman got dragged into the fray as well, but it wasn't enough to keep a horrible mood from settling on me.

I took the Metro to the city in a stupor, and I can barely recall getting checked in to my hotel. As I stood in the shower trying to wash the annoyance off, I pondered hands. I think of them in terms of life, sure, but there are other ways to think of them. The development of hand transplants hit the news not long ago. And what about fingerprinting? Transmission of infectious disease?

But those were things about hands in general. I replayed the information from Karne in my mind as I dressed for dinner. I was in the elevator headed toward the hotel bar when it hit me: each skin had been embroidered in an individual design.

I let the word rattle in my brain: individual. I sat in a corner of the bar where I could watch people walking down the sidewalk, and I thought about Roman graves. Individual. I'd put away half my mint julep—oh don't laugh—and had reviewed the ways I knew to mark the inmate of a gravesite before I rattled back around to one of my first thoughts. Fingerprinting: the hand is individual, and linked to identity. But not after death.

No, I'd puzzled through enough sets of bones to know that one hand looks a lot like another unless there's a disease process or significant injury. That's what makes it like most human body parts. Nearly everybody's got them. But hands and feet, when they have skin, are like faces. We can recognize them.

So we mark them. We cut our hair differently. We wear makeup. We wear jewelry. We tell everyone looking at us: this is mine. I am distinct.

But that's not right, either. I'd seen too many signet rings and guild symbols—not to mention mass produced jewelry—to believe that the markers were all about individuality. Maybe the specific combination was. But decoration is as much about culture as a whole as it is about personality.

I was running myself into the ground. I needed Karne. I was also finishing a strong drink on an empty stomach, and I was starting to feel it. I took out my phone and stared for a moment at his name in my contact list. I calculated the time difference. I flipped the phone shut and stowed it again.

After I'd eaten half of my dinner I came to a decision. I'd make the research about the cultural material my job. I'd look up the designs on Karne's tapestry and the images of the saints. I'd try to find the sources for the embroidered scenes. Karne could look at the ways this case was like any other. I'd look at the ways it wasn't.

I knew I needed those pictures of the embroidery to do this well. I'd been smart enough to bring my laptop with me, but not enough to scan the photos Karne had before I left home. I resolved to email Karne and ask for them before I went to bed, and to email my old dissertation advisor about getting access to the GW libraries while I was in Washington.

I still have the email I sent Karne, and his response.

_Karne:_

_Please send me the photographs of the embroidery. I have an idea._

_-- AC_

_Connell: _

_I am pleased Newman did not hold your attention, but I must remind you that you are on vacation. You are not accomplishing your stated objective. Nevertheless I have attached the photographs you requested._

_I have also attached a tracing of the embroidered images, and of tattooed markings I've discovered beneath the stitching. I presume you'd prefer not to look at the skin again._

_Karne_

I opened the tracing files as soon as I received them, and printed them in the hotel business center as soon as I was dressed for the day. Karne had made combined images, with both the lines of the tattoos and the embroidered scenes. He'd also separated the two.

Though the images embroidered on top of the skin seemed familiar, the tattoos did not. They seemed either crude or old. The edges of the lines were hazy and stretched, and the initial designs were very simple. I wanted to privilege them because they were beneath the other designs, and they were done during life. Karne had laughed at me before for wanting the attributes of the victim to mean something in relation to the crime, but I suppose it never fazed me. My gut told me these marks came first, and would help explain the embroidery. I looked for patterns.

One mark was repeated on three of the images, and I copied it onto a fresh sheet of paper. It was two horizontal parallel lines crossed by a hash mark, much like the mathematical symbol. I imagined it couldn't have been a reference to that—what would be unequal to what?—but it was tempting to think so. I shoved my sketch into my bag and set off for a breakfast meeting with my old advisor. I hoped he'd have some thoughts.

* * *

Thanks are due (again!) to J.A. Lowell for pointing out my nasty typo. I'd like to blame it on the broken wrist, but that'd be a big lie. I'm fortunate to have attentive readers. While I'm jawing, here: I hope the pace isn't too slow. I'm a bit worried about it.

--E


	4. Chapter 4: History Painting

**CHAPTER 4: History Painting**

The Metro in Washington has a particular smell early in the morning. It's a mixture of mildew and Lysol, I think, and it reminds me of the lab. Since I'd wasted more than a little time on my appearance I didn't really want to smell like the lab, and the familiar scent of morning on the Metro was more annoying than nostalgic. I spent the ride to GW balancing on the high heels that usually gather dust in my closet and shoving my hair, which I never wear down, back behind my shoulders. The dry-clean-only dress I also never wear hung looser near my hips than it did when I was still on the academic path. There's much less sitting down in forensics, that's for sure.

My dissertation supervisor and mentor is one of the more famous names in the ancient civilizations world. I knew that when I came to GW, because I came to work with him. I did not know, at the time I applied, that he was famous for taking on three times as many students as he actually planned to support. I was completely unaware that I had waded into a shark pool until I was in up to my thighs. I was one of the third that survived the six years of school between B.A. and Ph.D. At no point during those six years did I feel certain I'd make it.

So here I was, at eight in the morning, back in Washington after several years' absence. Here I was dressed like a professor even though I'd chosen not to be one. Here I was to tell Dr. Foley I'd chosen the modern world. I straightened my shoulders and commanded myself to relax. Ha.

"Amy Connell, are you going to stand in my doorway until I come to get you?" His voice was just as I remembered: not softened with age but snapping against each syllable like a taut wire.

"Are you up for coffee, Professor?" I decided to ignore the fact that he'd seen my outline through the frosted glass on his office door. If I admitted that to myself I'd have to admit that he'd probably seen me hike my slipping bra strap back onto my shoulder.

"Amy, we're colleagues now, let's dispense with the formalities." He'd remained seated at his desk as I walked in. The light from the window behind him caught on the edges of his lenses and diffused light over his face. Dr. Foley had struck me, at first, as the sort of man I always imagined Melville's narrators were. He wears a full beard, well-trimmed, and has light blue eyes that seem sliver behind his reading glasses. He's tall and lean, and his skin looks like the pages of old books. He started to place a document back into a folio, but looked up at me and hesitated. "Come have a look at this."

I rounded the desk and leaned over to look at the document. It was medieval, likely German. The Latin was clumsily written, and there were at least two signs that the scribe had excised some of the paper to remove a mistake. Dr. Foley stretched a finger—bandaged, I noticed—toward a very small figure sketched into the right margin near the gutter of the page. "A grave?"

"How do you like that?" Dr. Foley turned the pages so I could see the figure more clearly. "It's not just any old grave, Amy. This drawing corresponds to several others I've found recently. I'll tell you all about it, shall I?"

"Please do," I nodded and stepped away to let him get up. I barely suppressed the urge to offer him an arm when he rose slowly and leaned very heavily on the table. "But you promised me breakfast, and I'm going to hold you to it."

"You drive a hard bargain, but I accept." He'd straightened fully and within a few steps down the hall the slowness had left his steps. We followed our old route to the French café one Metro stop away, idly chatting. When we sat down, though, Dr. Foley gave me a look I instantly recognized from my defense meetings. I tried distraction.

"Things have changed a good deal in the department, I hear." He furrowed his brow at me.

"Amy, I'm an old man, not a stupid man." My mouth fell open, and I tried to cover it by taking a drink of my coffee. I burnt my tongue, and worked at suppressing my grimace. "My young assistant taught me how to 'Google' people, you know."

"I'm sorry?"

"You work for the LA County Coroner, and you haven't mentioned it."

"You Googled me?" I blinked at him.

"Actually, my assistant did. I watched." I set my coffee cup down and pressed my thumbs against the edge of the table. "So my first question to you is simple: why didn't you tell me?" I couldn't keep eye contact. "I'll answer myself," he rumbled. "You honestly thought I'd think your work wasn't worth the time you spent on your education. Amy, I'm a bit offended. To think you believed I'd care, after all those years with your acerbic director."

"I didn't want to bother you…"

"Faugh, I'm not bothered at all." He took a moment to unwrap his silverware from his napkin and to place the napkin in his lap. "But you were, weren't you?"

"How do you mean?"

"You walked into my office as though you'd totaled the family car, dear." He put a croissant onto a bread plate and pushed it across the table toward me. "Now eat, and I'll tell you about my dead people. Then you can tell me about yours." I grinned at him and shook my head.

"The drawing first; you promised." He inclined his head to me and put his lecturing look on his face, then started a story that even the returning waitress couldn't interrupt.


	5. Chapter 5: Didacticism

**CHAPTER 5: Didacticism **

"Hypovolemic shock, Amy," Dr. Foley looked up from stirring his coffee and poked the tip of his teaspoon in my direction. "You don't hear of hypovolemic shock, do you? It's a pity. It's quite a satisfying term." I tilted my head at him. He set his teaspoon down on the edge of his saucer. "One didn't hear of it in medieval Germany, either. Instead one heard of being buried alive."

I imagine I made the kind of excited, wide-eyed face that kids make when you tell them campfire stories, because Dr. Foley chuckled. He took a sip of his well-whitened coffee.

"Hypovolemic shock is how one dies of cholera. One has the familiar symptoms, with the loss of fluid one would expect. And then one's body gives up. I suppose that is too poetic for you, in your new line of work. I suppose you would prefer this: hypovolemic shock comes of not having enough blood to circulate. Some definitions claim losing a fifth of the blood is enough to tip the balance, but of course it's debatable. What isn't?" He chuckled. I squinted at him.

"Yes, yes, I'm coming to it. No need to glare at me." I rolled the seams of my napkin between my fingers and tried to look patient. "When a body nears that form of shock, it can appear dead. And often it is, nearly." He waved his hand a lot like Karne does. I shifted in my chair. "But sometimes it isn't, and that's the trouble."

"Those pictures correspond to outbreaks of Cholera?" I ventured. He nodded, and took a moment to chew his bite of croissant.

"They do, they do. And I was convinced that was all there was to it, but there's more. You see, Amy, there's a series of stories of live burials that occur in the vernacular just where and when those drawings come up in the manuscripts."

"The vernacular?" I raised my eyebrows at him.

"Yes, yes. I've said scholarship on the 'popular culture' of the medieval world is groundless." He made air quotes, and I nearly snorted my coffee. "But now it buttresses my own research, and I find I'm more favorably disposed." I looked over toward the café's bar to avoid smirking at him. He caught me. "Don't you roll your eyes at me, Amy Connell," he teased.

"So you've got sketches of gravesites on manuscripts during date ranges that correspond to Cholera outbreaks. So what?"

"I taught you well," he smiled. He was famous for sneering 'so what?' at students during seminars just to see what they'd do before a hostile audience. "The live burial story, dear, the story. The earliest version is something like this: A woman, the wife of a prominent and wealthy citizen, takes ill and dies during an outbreak of sickness in the town. Though many are dying, and most are buried in haste and with scant ceremony, the woman's position merits a full burial. She has many mourners, and she is seen going to her eternal rest wearing a valuable ring."

"She gets ripped off," I interrupted.

"Oh quite literally," he chuckled. "Her deplorable footman breaks into the vault under the cover of darkness and attempts to wrench the ring from her cold hand. It won't come free. He takes out his boot-knife, and begins to cut off her finger." The waitress came and switched our drained press-pot with a hot one. Dr. Foley inclined his head at her. "Thank you, dear," he said. The woman looked freaked out. I decided not to make things worse by smiling at her.

"So? The finger?"

"Precisely; the finger." He took an extra long time pressing down the plunger in the new pot. At last the metal disc reached the level of the grounds in the bottom. "The good woman awakened from her false death, grappled with the too-hasty footman, and came out victorious."

"How?" I raised my eyebrows.

"She let him have it with his own knife, of course."

"Fine, but she was still in _her_ own grave."

"For heaven's sake, Amy; she didn't stay there." He poured us both a fresh cup of coffee. "It would have been awfully unpleasant."

"What's next?"

"She wandered out of the vault in her bloodied shroud. When she demanded entrance at her home the maid tried to keep her out, thinking she was a spirit. But her husband recognized her as his wife, a victim of premature burial."

"And they lived happily ever after."

"That's doubtful indeed. Cholera always has swept the workers from beneath the wealthy. If one cannot be happy doing one's own laundry, well, there it is." He put the final bite of his breakfast into his mouth and chewed slowly, with his eyes focused at a point past my left shoulder. Once he swallowed he looked me in the eye again. "You'll want to know the rest. This became a very popular story, and was put into a religious frame, of course. When the woman died permanently her first burial shroud, which she had obligingly embroidered with the story of her false death, was displayed above her memorial in the town church."

"She embroidered the shroud?" I know my voice sounded too excited, but spending so much time with embroidery on the brain will do that to you. Dr. Foley noticed, and gave me a strange look.

"Just as I said, Amy. A few writings give quite a description of it; supposedly it was worked with copper." He swiped at the corners of his mouth with his napkin, then folded it to the side of his plate. I took the cue to rise.

"Does it still exist?"

"Lost in the war, of course," he growled. "Wasn't everything?"

"But you think the story is more important than the shroud."

"Only in that it had greater currency," he said, pausing to stand stubbornly at the door I was attempting to hold open for him. I relinquished the door and let him hold it for me. "And that it appears to have made its way into the margins of some young scribes' manuscripts."

"Like a popular ghost story."

"Not a ghost, Amy," he chuckled, "a miraculous preservation from death!"

As I walked Dr. Foley back to his office and made arrangements to meet him for coffee the next afternoon at least a third of my mental energy was still stuck on the woman, her ring, and the story shroud. I remembered to get some book cites from Dr. Foley before I left him to his office hours, and I went directly to the library. There I made two stacks of resources on my table: to my left I had a pile of art history books focused on the Holy Roman Empire, and to my right I had a mountain of books on death folklore. I cracked open a book on tapestries and started skimming the pages Dr. Foley had mentioned.

It took me two hours to get anywhere with the research, even with Dr. Foley's starting point.


	6. Chapter 6: India Ink

**CHAPTER 6: India Ink**

I spent the afternoon in the National Gallery with the _Stations of the Cross_, staring from several vantage points and occasionally yanking my attention back to the paintings in front of me when it wandered to the research I'd been doing. Once I left the gallery I gave up on the battle and strolled, thinking about the shroud.

I'd gleaned this: the shroud Dr. Foley referred to was in Germany, but the story of the lady with the ring ricocheted around medieval Europe for decades. Some other places had competing shrouds as well. Here's where it gets interesting. All were worked in a series of scenes that told the story of transformation from life to death and back to life again. And all the tapestries contained massive quantities of copper thread in the segments of the story surrounding the moment of reawakening.

There was copper thread in the elephant tapestry from the woman's home. That's enough for a noncommittal shrug, or a dismissive nod. It's not enough for much more than that. I mulled. I wandered around Washington. My feet led me to the National Cathedral, where I fell in behind a group of cub scouts. They were walking around squinting, with their chins tilted high in the air. At length, one of the boys started jumping up and down. He'd found it. The other children gathered around him, and they all craned their necks to stare at the gargoyle of Darth Vader, children's choice for the newest gargoyle at the National Cathedral in Washington. I stood behind them and looked at it as well.

It isn't tough for me to imagine why the shroud of a not-quite-dead petty noblewoman would get a place in a local church. Those cub scouts would never be so animated if they weren't looking for something that had a story they liked. Star Wars or the woman with the ring, I guess. I wandered farther from the kids and took a seat in one of the chapels. St. Jude tilted his eyes toward the gilded wooden rays issuing from upper reaches of the altarpiece. "The patron of hopeless cases," I muttered. "Saints!"

My exclamation made a woman near the altar turn and peer at me. I stood and walked into the next chapel while I tried to bring the images of the saints on Karne's wall into focus in my mind. Which ones were they? I had to know. I had to look. I went back to the hotel and my laptop as quickly as dignity allowed.

I wrote an email to Karne that night while I finished the hotel's signature cocktail. It was a mixture of gin, lemon juice, and some especially volcanic sparkling mineral water. I wasn't so sure about it, but I kept at it. There ought to be a saying about drinks that's sort of like the French saying "all cats are gray in the dark." If there were, I'd use it to refer to that house cocktail, and the way it was treating me.

I chased it with a peaty scotch. There ought to be a saying about scotch that's sort of like the fairytale phrase "all the better to see you with, my dear." If there were, I'd apply it to most of the good scotches I've ever met. When it comes to drinks, I like wolves more than I like cats.

So I was a little drunk when I wrote Karne, and a little curt. I like to think I was also on to something. The images of the saints all contained copper thread, according to what I could look up online. Even better: each of the saints had some connection to interrupted or reversed passages between death and life. I was excited enough to be demanding:

_Karne,_

_I need to know if the estate team found any other art. Look for anything containing copper. _

_--AC_

In the small hours of the morning I heard my email program's alert sound go off. Instead of ignoring it, or wishing I'd had the presence of mind to shut my laptop or mute it, I got out of bed to take a look at my new mail. I neglected to either get my glasses or disentangle my feet from the clingy sweater-like hotel blanket before I started walking, so it was an arduous process. I found this:

_Connell,_

_You are thinking of the tapestry I was barbaric enough to nail to my wall. I will refrain from making a joke about the Carthaginian elephants in the Alps. The images of saints also contain copper work. That is why I grouped them; I understand copper is unusual. You'll have noticed the copper walking sticks in each of the landscapes._

_You remain at work. Think of what you're doing, Amy._

_--Karne_

I must have read that email five times over. But there it was, plain as day: he called me by my first name. I even picked up my phone to call him and check on him, but I set it down in the end. After all, anyone but Karne would call me Amy all the time. Still, it took me a few moments to settle back to sleep after I shut my laptop down.

Later that morning I returned to the library with a tracing of the tattoo all the hands had in common. I started with a general reference on body art, and kept winnowing until I had one large book of flash on my table.

Before I dove into the encyclopedic collection, I took a minute to think about my research question. What exactly did I know, and what exactly did I want to know? I had the design. I knew it was monochromatic, only moderately dark, and crudely done. The repetition suggested it was a meaningful sign. I looked at the index of the book of flash. There it was: prison tattoos. It lined up: coded meaning, crude execution, and poor materials. I flipped the section of the book open and set to work.

It only took an hour to find what I wanted. There, toward the end of the section on criminal ink, was a section on a couple of Russian anthropologists who studied prison tattoos. They'd produced a taxonomy, which was reproduced in simplified form in the flash book. Sure enough, my mathematical-looking sign was in the catalog. The symbol sometimes came in larger form on the torso, or as a mutation of a Christian cross. By itself, between the knuckle and first joint of the forefinger, it meant "in life, count only on yourself." The darkness of the ink suggested that the tattoos on the hands were Siberian. Other regions tended to have slightly more blue ad hoc inks. There it was.

I photocopied the page and stepped out to the sidewalk to call Karne. The phone rang three times before he picked up.

"Connell. You're working." As usual, Karne didn't waste time with greetings.

"Hello to you too," I teased.

"Well?" I could hear him let out a long exhalation. He must've been smoking.

"I've found something."

"Clearly." I took a moment to control the urge to snap at him. He was in one of his moods, and I knew it wouldn't help. I must have interrupted his train of thought. Great.

"The tattoo symbol on all the hands is from Soviet-era prisons. It means 'in life, count only on yourself.' The ink color suggests it's from Siberia."

"Siberia." His voice was a bit lower and significantly calmer when he repeated my answer. I must've hit on something he was already pursuing.

"Yes, the placement is right, and the ink color is right."

"Well done, Connell." There was a pause, then the sound of keys clinking against one another. "Yes, that does make sense."

"How?"

"No, no. I'll tell you when you are no longer on vacation." The phone went dead then. I ground my teeth for a bit, and then indulged in a grunt of annoyance when the grinding didn't make me feel any better. The grunt didn't work either. I settled for stalking down the street at a faster pace than necessary, in the end, and I resolved to give Karne a piece of my mind once I got back to LA.


	7. Chapter 7: Impasto

**CHAPTER 7: Impasto**

After lunch I went to Dr. Foley's office hours to present my case. I waited in the hall as he explained a grade to a young student, who left looking unsatisfied but defeated. I watched him walk a few steps down the hall and hoped he was old enough to go get himself a pint.

"Amy! Walk out to the courtyard with me; we'll avoid the barbarian hordes." Dr. Foley's booming voice startled some of the students standing by me in the hallway. They looked incredibly young to me, though they were probably undergraduates, adults. I shot the girl—no, woman—nearest me an apologetic look.

"I won't take you too long," I called. I shot another look at the woman; she made eye contact this time. I turned back toward the door to Dr. Foley's office. "I'd love your thoughts on a theory of mine."

"Always happy to criticize," he assured me. He turned and locked the door to his office, then seemed to notice the students waiting in the hallway. He nodded at them and turned away toward the door to the courtyard. I hesitated just long enough to hear one of the students let out a slow and shallow sigh. I trotted down the hall and reached the courtyard bench just as he was finishing lighting a cigarette. I accepted one from his case—a Nat Sherman—and let him light it for me with his engraved gold lighter. I took a long drag and exhaled into the air over my head, thinking absently that the trees hadn't grown much in my absence, and that the meager layer of soil in the courtyard was probably to blame. Dr. Foley cleared his throat. I sat up straight, and looked over toward him.

"I've got a case. I'll start with what I have, and what I think about it. I want to know if you can think of any other lines of inquiry, or if you think there's a hole in my explanation."

"Fair enough."

"We have a collection of the following objects: an embroidered cloth worked in copper thread with figures of elephants; a set of six images of saints, all also containing copper thread embroidery; and a set of four small landscape images that all contain a walking figure with a walking stick done in copper thread."

"Religious symbolism to the walking sticks?" He raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head.

"In two of the images it's clear that the walking stick is flowering. I've got bad image quality, though. I can't tell on the other two, or if it's a development. I immediately think of the flowering rod, you know." I exhaled a long stream of smoke above our heads. "It doesn't line up, and I know it doesn't line up."

"It won't, if one is answering the wrong question," he interrupted. "You are no longer in the business of figuring out what culture buried a body, Amy. You know those answers already." He tapped one heel against the paving stones and gestured for me to continue.

"Exactly. We've got an American woman, elderly, living alone, collecting images that have to do with false death or rebirth."

"Only those themes?"

"I only know of those."

"Tell me what you need to know from me." He glanced in my direction, and I composed my thoughts for a moment before continuing.

"I don't believe she was simply a collector. She only came to our attention because an estate clearance crew found a set of embroidered scenes done on human skin in with her collection."

"Now, Amy," he held up a hand, "to be clear: they were scenes embroidered onto human skin?"

"To be _perfectly_ clear they were scenes in the French Landscape style of the late eighteenth century, and each had a small figure of a man with a large walking stick in the left bottom quadrant of the image. All the skin was from the hands of former prisoners of the USSR—probably those imprisoned in the oil-producing regions of Siberia."

"And where do you see that?" A light breeze curled into the corner of the courtyard near our bench and lifted strands of our hair from our heads. Dr. Foley stubbed out his first cigarette and lit another.

"The skin was tattooed. I found research on prison tattoos in the USSR. They often varied by region. Each of the grounds has the same tattoo—from Siberia."

"How was it enough skin?" He held his hand up and looked at the back of it, then pushed his fingers tightly against one another. "She must have stitched the fingers together, surely."

"Either that or the skin was mounted on a backing. It's difficult to tell from the images I have."

"Images?" He raised his eyebrows, but didn't glance in my direction.

"For now I've got photographs of the embroidered skin. I'll be able to give it a thorough look once I'm back in LA."

"You were saying 'we' and 'our' before."

"I work with a detective. He's researching the source of the skin."

"Ought you to be doing the same?" He grinned, and I bristled.

"No." He looked over at me and smiled, then looked out ahead of us again.

"Convince me."

"He's looking at means. I'm looking at motive. If he hits a dead end, my information could give us a new direction."

"You expect to come in second," he frowned.

"My partner's very good." Dr. Foley let out a noise somewhere between a huff and a growl. We sat in silence for a while. At length I decided to go on. "I can find two links between all the objects: copper and stories of rebirth or false death."

"Go on." He was frowning; I could feel it before I glanced over at him.

"All of the saints have specific links to healing in desperate cases. The pattern of elephants is a traditional design linked to harvest and fertility festivals."

"You're reaching, dear," he chuckled.

"The four images show landscapes from each of the seasons, and the walker's posture straightens as the seasons progress. He loses the burdens he's carrying, as well. If I'm right about the flowering rod, well, I don't even have to explain that."

"You most certainly do," he said. "If you are wrong, you'll have to explain it. You ought to explain it if you are right."

"All right. But beyond the flowering rod, we know the walking stick is done in copper. The copper in the German shroud is reserved for the scenes of transition between death and life. Specifically, it's reserved for images of the ring and the shroud."

"You're muddying up your two links by linking them to one another."

"They are linked," I protested.

"You think so," he said. "But does the copper mean anything in and of itself? Does the theme of death and rebirth? Is there, in fact, a theme of death and rebirth? Recall, Amy, that cultures make a good deal of art around life and death. Even a varied collection would have several images that fit into that theme." I looked down at my hands. He had a point.

"The thematic material is only significant as it relates to the copper." I turned toward him in time to see a small grin pass his face. "The rarest attribute narrows the field most."

"Go on."

"Embroidery is an odd way to use copper. A concentration of artifacts with copper embroidery isn't accidental. It's either to the owner's taste, or it fits a theme. There's a theme to the copper embroidery, including the landscapes. That makes the second explanation more plausible."

"Fine. Now: why do you care?"

"Because I want to know if the lady made the landscapes, or if she just collected them. I think, because they fit the theme so perfectly, that she made them. I hope so. If not, there's someone in LA making landscapes on human skin."

"That's not an answer."

"Yes it is: If the motive is to add to the collection, or to fit the collection, the motive is the woman's. If not, there's another person at work."

"_Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_? Come, Amy. You know better. You cannot claim that the existence of the collection caused more pieces of the collection to be produced."

"Why not? If she has the skill, and if my partner can prove that she had access to the materials, there's no reason to keep looking for the embroiderer."

"Now you're back to sense." He turned toward me and forcefully brought his palm down on his knee. "Think of what you're doing. If I were to tell you that the Medici family made all of their art collection because it fit their taste and desire for certain themes, would you buy it?"

I felt my shoulders drop. "Of course not, they had to employ skilled workers."

"As does your woman. She might have been the artisan, but she might not have been. You're worrying about the art patron instead of the artist."

"You're forgetting that the art is criminal, though," I rallied. "If it were a piece of furniture, I'd see your point more clearly. But she can't have asked someone to embroider a piece of skin for her."

"Could she not have done?" He raised his eyebrows.

"It's unlikely."

"So are lottery wins and train wrecks, dear, but once in a while," he brought his palms together with a report that bounced around the stone walls of the courtyard. "Once in a while they happen."

"True," I said. I looked over at him. He'd moved his focus into the middle distance in front of us, and he was rubbing his thumb lightly over the engraving on the side of his lighter.

"I suppose one could simply snap," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Truly, Amy. Why do people like to do things like this? I've spent my professional life with stories like these—people tying a prisoner's arms and legs to four horses before whipping the horses in opposite directions; people tying people up by their heels and smoking them; people crushing one another beneath piles of stones. For the love of heaven, Amy, the other mammals don't do things like this! Why would they? To what purpose? Often it's just to do it. I cannot imagine doing something so permanent 'just to do it' unless one were mad." I'd never known Dr. Foley to seem upset by the macabre. It's just not worth the energy when you work with graves for a living. I struggled to find a response.

"A lot of people are mad," I said.

"We are fortunate not all of them are dangerous." He turned to face me again. "I think it holds together as well as it will, Amy. But you've got work to do. You know this. If there is more embroidered skin out there you aren't finished. You've got to make sure there isn't before you can tie anything together. Few causal arguments survive new evidence." He stretched out an arm to flick the ash off his cigarette far enough away to keep the wind from blowing it back at us. "If I were working this problem I would follow that copper. It takes a great deal of skill to work with it, and you've already found symbolism specific to your case. Yes. Follow that copper thread and find your artisan."


	8. Chapter 8: The Classical Tradition

**CHAPTER 8: The Classical Tradition**

"Bridget?" I pressed the phone tighter to my ear as another announcement about keeping a close watch on your bags echoed over the background noise of the terminal. So many hard surfaces, I mused. No wonder it's such an echo chamber in here.

"Amy?" She sounded awfully confused. I suppose I never do call her unless it's work related. Six o'clock on a Sunday night would make her think the worst.

"Yeah, sorry to bother you on a weekend."

"Forget it—are you okay?" I heard some clattering in the background. Dishes, maybe.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I picked my nails against the weave of my carry-on bag. After a few days out of the lab I'd actually grown nails. "I'm just calling to tell you I'll be in late tomorrow and I'm probably going to miss class, too."

"What happened?"

"Nothing major. I just took a delayed flight." I shifted in my seat. The black vinyl was starting to feel sticky even through my jeans.

"First class?" She laughed a little, and I pictured her executing her usual hair flick.

"Nah, voucher."

"So we're going to Vegas?" She laughed again; I joined her.

"After the first of the month, baby."

"Yeah, I gotta make rent too." I heard the sounds of glasses clinking together. "I'll hit the paperwork before you get there. Viva Las Vegas."

"Later," I grinned. I leaned my head back on the top edge of the chair and let the vinyl panel support my neck. I could just see Bridget and me in Vegas, shifting uncomfortably in too-revealing clothes we'd dared each other to wear. I forced my attention back to the journal on my lap.

Dr. Foley had tossed it in my direction with a suggestion that I check out an oddball article on reincarnation. I'd tried to read it on the Metro to the airport with mixed success. I find it hard to focus on charts when there's motion in my peripheral vision. At any rate I had picked up the basics. It seemed like a cross between Philosophy and Ecology to me. Human Ecology? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? No—that's a real discipline. I smirked to myself. This, if anything, was detective work.

I took a sip of my substandard Americano. There's nothing like an airport for bad coffee in five-dollar cups. I grimaced at the metallic aftertaste. Burnt, too.

The thrust of the article wasn't the discussion. At least, not to my eyes. It was the finely-sifted tables of interview material. The author had crossed continents to interview people—mostly children—believed to be reincarnated souls. He'd written down their reported memories and attempted to cross-reference them with the lives of the dear departed. I could almost find a theme. Person dies unexpectedly or violently. Child is born. Child begins talking about social networks outside his or her ken. Parents begin to record the child's stories once they've decided the child is remembering a past life. Parents and family seek the prior owner of the soul's family. Story is woven. Enter scientist.

Karne and I don't make charts. We don't; we don't; we don't. Keep telling yourself that, Amy.

But there's the flowering of the rod. Dr. Foley knew I'd remember. The first time I read about the bennu bird, Egyptian phoenix, I wanted to dart off to Karnak and stay there. It's a stupid impulse. But something captures me about the story. The bennu bird dropped a tiny grain into the heart—_the urn of the heart_, my history professor used to say. A rod grew there. It would blossom. Rebirth.

"…it is a lily, if you will/ each petal, a kingdom, an aeon/ and it is the seed of a lily / that having flowered/ will flower again…" H.D. _Trilogy_, "The Flowering of the Rod," 10

I didn't realize I'd been mumbling those lines until I noticed a little kid looking at me from two seats down. I sat up straight again and punched the speed dial to Karne.

"Connell." His voice sounded more patient than the last time I'd called. I shifted my weight.

"Karne," I parroted.

"You are calling for an update on my progress. I've had a small success at a neighborhood mortuary."

"What neighborhood?"

"Your tip about the source of the tattoos confirmed my thinking on that point." He paused to light a cigarette. I was jealous all of a sudden, then immediately annoyed with him. If I start smoking again I plan to blame Karne. "You realize the State Department is in the habit of settling refugees in clusters."

"No. Sort of. Go on."

"The neighborhood funeral home to which I referred has had a run of medical cases lately." He let out a long smooth exhalation. I could picture the look on his face, and his usual slouch in his armchair.

"I don't want to know how you know this."

"Probably not." He paused, and I heard him shuffling paper and then crumpling some. I bet he tossed it on the floor. "Where _are_ you, Connell?"

"Washington. I'm at the airport." I shifted my weight again. The airport chair just got worse with time. "I'll be back tomorrow morning."

"And in no shape to aid me."

"Love you too," I muttered. I held the phone away from my ear when he let out a loud laugh.

"The medical cases, Connell." I heard more papers. "I'll need to speak with your friend McLynn, I think."

"That shouldn't be a problem." I dug in my purse for my planner. "Soon?"

"As soon as possible." The shuffling stopped. "It will involve some subterfuge."

"DuPret?"

"Of course."

"She won't care, then." I stood and rolled my shoulders. "When you say medical cases you mean organ donors, right?"

"Yes, yes." I'm willing to bet Karne waved his hand in that gesture I hate.

"So cremations."

"Mm."

"What's that mean?" I sat back down, and was dismayed to find the vinyl was still warm.

"What?" He'd taken on his distracted tone again.

"What's 'mm' mean?" I popped my heel out of my shoe and rolled my ankle around.

"It means I need data." He was starting to sound even more distracted, and I hadn't heard the grind of his lighter again. Intervals between cigarettes are never good.

"I'll set something up with McLynn. She might not meet you without me, though."

"I'm still a psychopath, then?"

"She's a mother, Karne." I paused to think about whether I wanted to say what I thought needed saying. Damn the torpedoes. "Try to understand."

I held the phone away from my ear again as he laughed. "I'm sure we'll both be grateful for your presence, Connell. You can protect her from me."

"Shut up."

"That would make conversing difficult."

"It already is," I grumbled. "Goodnight, Karne."

"Mm." This one was more of a grunt. I rolled my eyes and snapped my phone shut, then cracked open my planner to set up a lunch with McLynn. Whatever Karne thought about it, I actually did need to be there to protect her from his excesses. Keep telling yourself _that_, too, Amy.


	9. Chapter 9: Southern Gothic

**CHAPTER 9: Southern Gothic**

Laney's was quiet; it was a big court day and not yet noon. Karne sat across from me. His knees brushed mine under the table even though he'd pressed himself against the back of the booth. The light wool of his trousers tickled my knees through my stockings. I tried to shift without him noticing.

"You're squirming, Connell."

"This seat's in bad shape." It was a transparent evasion, but he let me have it. And it was true: we'd chosen the least comfortable booth along the windows. The center of both benches had dropped down from years of patrons, and the rigid outer frame of the seat dug under my knees and alongside my thigh. I was finding it hard not to sit at a tilt.

"You could join me."

"It'd make McLynn feel like she was facing a panel of judges," I hedged. It would also make me feel like we were on a Junior High date. Do you want to share a milkshake, too, Karne?

"I'm not gentleman enough to abandon my seat for you, if that's what you're asking." He gave me a small smirk before turning his attention back to the sidewalk outside the window.

"It isn't," I laughed. Karne was in an unusually good mood. That worked in my favor, since I had to go to court just after our lunch. It's especially irritating to go to court when you're already annoyed.

Laney came by to refill our coffee cups and gave both me and the rapidly-filling ashtray on our table pointed looks. I nearly hid my smile at her, and she almost clamped down on hers. "Just saw the doctor walking up, Hon," she smiled. I craned my neck around and saw McLynn walking down the aisle toward us. Laney beckoned her back into the smoking section.

I thanked her and stood up to greet McLynn. I was surprised to see Karne take the hint and follow me.

"Welcome home, girly," McLynn called down to me. When she reached arm's length she set her briefcase down and gave me a hug. I could tell Karne was swallowing a laugh, and I was grateful he was making the effort. "Lord, when you didn't show up Monday morning I thought you'd died."

"I'm fine," I laughed. "This is my friend Oliver Karne." Karne stretched an arm out, and the two shook. I introduced McLynn while they looked each other over.

"Well let's sit," McLynn said. She slid in next to Karne, to my surprise. She turned to him and clamped a hand on his forearm. If I didn't know him so well I wouldn't have noticed, but it startled him. "I hear I'm going to be lying to DuPret for you, Honey."

Karne coughed. I ducked my chin and tried to keep my shoulders from shaking. McLynn looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and I could see her laugh lines crinkle. I settled into the hollow of the deflated bench cushion to watch.

"Yes, if you agree to," Karne managed. McLynn let his arm loose when Laney walked back over. He gave me a short glare while McLynn ordered, and I sucked a little of my cheek between my molars to be ready for the next time I wanted to crack up.

"Now, tell me all about it," McLynn directed. Karne told her just what he'd told me, with the addition that the donor bodies had been preserved as beating heart cadavers. "So they would've gone pretty fresh," McLynn mused. "What else are you looking to find out?"

Karne seemed to need a few beats to parse that sentence. I took a moment to wonder where Karne was from, and I almost missed what he said next. "I need identities for the bodies."

"If you've got no evidence of crime I've got no right to know, darlin;' you know that." McLynn set her coffee mug down and turned toward me. "Ya'll might need a doctor at that hospital. A tech might could do it, too."

"Perhaps not, doctor," Karne stubbed out his cigarette. "Harvesting organs without appropriate consent is a crime."

"Oh my goodness," McLynn muttered. "You're going to do that, aren't you."

"I'm sure the paperwork actually is in order, doctor." Karne waved his hand. "That's not the point."

"The point is to get the paperwork to get other information," I interrupted.

"A snipe hunt." McLynn looked at each of us with a crooked grin on her face.

"Precisely," Karne declared. He lit another cigarette and exhaled the first drag right over my head. I frowned at him. McLynn smirked.

"You know how much worry this is going to cause those poor doctors," she said.

"No harm, no foul," I interrupted. "If they haven't done anything they'll just hand over the files and that'll be that."

"Now what do I have to do with all this?" She turned to Karne and gave him the 'mom' look that's made me spill my secrets before. I bit lightly on my cheek in preparation.

Karne squirmed. I looked out the window and bit down a little harder. "I will get the inquiry in motion. I need you to convince DuPret that the appropriate files cannot be understood by a non-medical reader."

"And somewhere while I'm giving my expert opinion I'll just happen to make some copies?" She lifted her eyebrows. Karne inclined his head toward her. McLynn shook her head and looked over at me.

"Why the hell am I agreeing to this, Amy?"

"Same reason I do, probably." I shrugged. "And maybe don't make copies." Karne raised his eyebrows at me. "I think they're starting to file scans from the copier on your floor. I've got a peripheral scanner you can borrow."

"My laptop?" McLynn flipped over her paper placemat and scrawled a phone number on one corner.

"Yeah," I nodded. "We'll switch files."

"Here's my home phone number," she thrust the piece of paper across to me. "Give me a call tonight and we'll finish this up. Right now I've got to get to court." She looked at my blazer hanging on the peg at the side of the booth. "Looks like you do too. Oh—and if you call me after six it'll be after gymnastics and soccer, so one of my babies'll probably answer the phone. They'll know your name." She stood, and I clambered up from the sunken seat cushion. Karne smirked at my flailing as he followed us out of the booth.

"Thank you, doctor." He extended his hand to McLynn again.

"I'm not going to say 'anytime,' Honey, but I'm sure you understand why not." They smiled at each other. I hefted my bag onto my shoulder and shook my watch down to my wrist to check the time. One of these days I'll get those extra links removed.

"We need to run," I declared. McLynn nodded at Karne. He smirked at me and I found myself grinning back. As I walked past him he caught my arm just above the elbow.

"Why do you 'agree to this,' Connell?" He stood close to me and I had to crane my neck to make eye contact. His hair had fallen forward, and the sleeve of his shirt had tightened a bit over his bicep. I shook my head at him.

"I have to go," I said. My voice was quiet; it probably barely reached him. He gave my arm a small squeeze before he let go.


	10. Chapter 10: The Futurists

**CHAPTER 10: The Futurists**

"Your other left, Bridget," I grinned. I threw my right arm up to block her overhand strike and drove my elbow toward her collarbone.

"Out of range, runt," she taunted. I threw out a kick and looped it around the outside of her knee. She lost the strength in her overhand, but landed a palm heel strike to my ribs. I twisted my body around and brought my leg back behind me barely in time to keep my feet. She stepped forward and came around at me; I barely blocked her kick in time to save my cheekbone.

"Acrobatics?" I flipped my wrist over to turn my block into a hold, and shoved her ankle upward. She hit the mat shoulder blades first. I backed up.

"Want to run the combination again?" She slid her elastic out of her hair and tightened her ponytail. I dragged my palm across my forehead and wiped my hands on my pants before tightening the straps on my guards.

"You first?" I raised my eyebrows at her. She nodded. As she tightened her guards I brought my pad to my chest to wait for the series of sternum strikes. Her first three were really forceful, but the next two weren't. She could tell, too.

"Could you look at my shoulders a sec?" I set the pad down and wandered to her side. She threw a palm heel strike. She was right; her shoulders were creeping down out of alignment as she repeated the strike and guard.

"Try rolling them back first?" She reset her stance and tried again. Better.

"So how are things with you and Karne, Amy," she teased. I rolled my eyes as I picked up the pad again.

"There's no me and Karne." She started the strike pattern.

"You hang out all the time."

"We work on cases all the time."

"But he's hot," she was starting to get out of breath. I rolled my eyes again.

"That makes one of us." She spun around to kick the pad.

"Oh shut _up_, Amy." She landed another heel strike. Time for diversionary tactics.

"He got McLynn to help him last week," I tried. She spun the opposite direction and started the second strike pattern.

"Doing what?"

"Getting some files," Bridget gasped, and I couldn't tell if it was exercise-related or shock. "He sent in a crap charge to DuPret and got some last known addresses from the investigation."

"Not the organ donor thing." Bridget finished the last combination and sank back to guard. I handed her the pad.

"Yeah, that." I started the strike pattern and sank back to start again when I felt my shoulders sinking. "Harder than it looks," I grumbled.

"No kidding." Bridget's breath was coming back. "So the organ donor thing was all crap?"

"Yeah, sort of. He wanted IDs on the bodies." I spun into the first kick and stopped to focus on keeping it low. My ballet background made it too easy for me to kick my sparring partners in the head. I grimaced when I still hit a little high on the pad. "Sorry."

"No worries. Just not in the face, all right?" I chuckled as I spun the opposite direction. "Keep your guard," she prodded.

"Right," I lifted my fist back up in front of my jaw. "So McLynn was going to scan some stuff, give it to me, and I was going to give it to Karne."

"But you didn't?"

"Didn't have to," I panted. "DuPret got so excited about Karne being wrong, and the papers being legit, that he showed the file to him."

"Hold up: DuPret showed Karne medical records?" Bridget's eyes were wide. I bet I looked exactly like that when Karne told me.

"I know." I hit the final kick.

"You guys are _so_ going to get arrested."

"Not before we go to Vegas, Bridget." I transitioned into the second strike pattern. She laughed. "I'm serious. Can't you just see us running the craps table?"

"Oh, us! I thought you meant you and Karne were going to go to Vegas." I must've given her a mortified look. She laughed. "You'd have such precious little genius babies." She made a show of putting a dreamy look on her face. I hit the next strike extra hard.

"Sheesh." I shook my head.

"Not so fast with the combo, huh?" Bridget's tone changed back to normal. I flicked my eyes up at her. "We've got conditioning after this." I sort of laughed and groaned at the same time. Our new instructor seemed to think none of us should be able to leave walking. Even though I wasn't looking, I could tell Bridget was looking balefully at the sit up boards.

Sure enough, that's where we went next. I at least managed to wrangle one with a padded upper edge. Last class I had one with a board that dug into the side of my hip while I tried to keep my balance doing reps.

"So: last known addresses?" Bridget looked at me out of the corner of her eye. By my count we were about thirty side crunches away from starting lat work.

"Yeah." I shifted a little before my next rep. The padding wasn't as effective as I'd thought it would be. "He won't tell me what he's thinking, but I know he's got some ideas."

"He's checking out the addresses?"

"I'll bet." My back cracked loudly.

"So what are you doing?"

"Chasing copper wire." I turned to my other side and our conversation stopped during the set. Once we were back on the floor I turned to her again.

"Copper wire?" She settled into the crunch position and we both extended our legs into the air.

"Yeah," I half-grunted. "We're looking at this one neighborhood, and I found a hobby shop that sells the right wire."

"Why the hell's that matter?" She glanced at me. We'd synchronized our straight-leg crunches to leave us facing each other on the turns. My muscles were starting to burn. Right, center, left—don't drop the legs—right, center, left.

"It's part of the original problem. Anyway there's a place that sells it, and it's the same place as a lot of the addresses."

"Got it." We turned away from one another, centered, and turned back again.

"I'm supposed to meet him tonight." She raised an eyebrow at me. I rolled my eyes yet again. "Don't know how I'm going to do that if I can't walk."

"Don't make me laugh," she wheezed. Her legs wavered.

"Fifteen reps," I panted.

"Talk to you in the locker room," she grunted.

"Right." I ran through what I knew about the copper wire in my head. I thought it would keep my brain off my great desire to stop doing crunches, but it was only partially effective. I'd found a hobby shop near a grocery store. It carried a fairly broad selection of craft stuff—balsa dinosaur kits, knitting needles, acrylic paint—and nearly all the materials for making the landscapes. I guess it's pretty obvious what part it didn't carry.

I sank back to the mat at the end of the reps and filled my lungs up as far as I could. I'd bought thread, copper, fine needles, and vellum. The anthropologist in me wanted to recreate the needlework. I probably wouldn't tell Karne. The last two times I'd seen him I'd had the suspicion he was doing something he didn't want to tell me about either. It was probably nothing. And even if it wasn't, did it matter? I could know all about it, and it wouldn't change anything. Karne was going to do whatever he was going to do. It was more than a little naïve to think he'd take the safe route if I asked him. I peeled myself off the mat and headed to the showers. In a couple hours I'd see him, and I could decide before then whether I wanted to ask.


End file.
